Downtown Eugene


Sunday, June 02, 2013

Fight the Borg
















Another giant out-of-town development conglomerate -- funded by the financial sector's collusion with the Federal government -- wants to land in Eugene, receive a property tax break from the City, build a huge-and-ugly apartment block, and extract as much local income from student housing as possible. This is part of the financial sector's continuing colonization of our lives.

The money these development corporations want is survival income for struggling, local, very small-scale landholders: the kinds of people who rent rooms and extensions in their houses. These people never get a tax break, from either the City or the Federal governments. And these local smallholders spend into the local economy -- so the downside, the cumulative economic ramifications of these out-of-town projects, is huge. Not surprisingly, nobody in City government calculates the downside of projects like this.

Certainly, when little Eugene struggled mightily to build a world-class university, by hand, over 140 years ago, none of those small-town idealists could have imagined this: a City government so insensitive to the local economy, that they'd give special privileges to huge absentee corporate landlords, rather than dissuade them from stealing business from harder-working locals. 

Unfortunately, this is the policy of many cities in modern times. This is how downtowns were destroyed, along with their diverse local businesses -- by shopping malls, by big-box stores, and by Urban Renewal, which serves large-scale corporate free-lunches at the public expense.

Local governments, dismissive of democracy, and lost within their internal pressures, have little concern for -- or understanding of -- public interest. They tend to believe it's the same as the wealthy and powerful interests within the city, and the giant corporations and government agencies outside of it. 

Instead, of course, local government's constituency should be the population at large. But unless the population speaks up (which they can, with as little as an email) it's very unlikely that the public interest will be served.

Eugene's City government, like that of many other cities, is trying to optimize for one thing only: future tax revenue. 

Tax revenue is a horrifically incorrect indicator of general public welfare. If I ran a totalitarian 19th-century company-town, with a population enslaved to sweatshops, with compliance enforced by city police, my City's tax revenues might be quite high! 

Not coincidentally, a focus on tax revenue leads to city policies that give away everything to wealthy out-of-town interests (and some large in-town interests), disenfranchising the citizens, and destroying broad local opportunity, in exchange for tiny increments in property tax revenue. 

Another thing the city is giving away -- its environment. Oh, this building might be "energy efficient", in some PR sense, but it obviously couldn't be more unnatural and disharmonious. It's completely lacking in properties that the majority of citizens consider a sign of good life and a healthy urban ecology.

The artist's rendering for this Core Campus building looks more-or-less like a Borg cube --straight from dystopian science fiction. It will land in downtown Eugene and suck up all the local revenue, impoverishing the citizens who work so hard to make life for student residents more interesting ... which they usually do because they are themselves graduates of the University of Oregon. That cooperative, pay-it-forward spirit is hurt every time a project like this is built.

This particular building is also strikingly out of proportion to its surroundings, and any human sensibility. 

Most people correctly believe that Eugene's architectural peak was long before the decline in standards after World War II -- and that's true of the world in general. But Eugeneans are lucky to have a great natural urban ecology ... a profusion of trees and flowers that any city in the world would envy. Developments like this Core Campus cube, which is planned to be 12 stories in height, immediately disrupt any sense of harmony with nature, or harmony with the people who enjoy nature. The building sticks out like a sore thumb, towering over neighborhoods, and isolating its residents from their surroundings.

Most people don't know the local history around an important alternative to bad modern architecture. 

In 1970, protests at the U of O led to a number of democratic changes, including a world-renowned experiment in democratic planning and construction. The extraordinary mission statement of this UO initiative was published by Christopher Alexander and his associates in a book called The Oregon Experiment. This was essentially the main research project behind the best-selling book on architecture, or cities, of all time: A Pattern Language. Many of the patterns in the book are taken from the UO campus. APL is such an important book in modern intellectual history that it should be required reading here in schools, given its Eugene connection. (Just as an aside: the wiki was invented by an Oregon programmer for the purpose of publishing software patterns modeled after APL, thus connecting Eugene to world-changing events such as wikipedia and wikileaks.)

There are clear alternatives to this governmental-corporate collusion. Just as a start, the City needs to get its citizens involved in deeper democratic decision-making, to the level of line-item ballot referenda -- and the citizens need to make a clamor until this happens. Until then, it will just be business as usual, as big money comes to town, distracts our local sycophants, and slowly turns Eugene into a maze of massive concrete and glass, occupied mostly by struggling wage-slaves.



Also, a note on the Capstone colonizing housing development, right downtown. This is so offensive that I've actually heard people cry out, on site, "they've killed this part of Willamette Street forever!" There is no room for trees, and the building has no interaction with the street. It simply pushes up against the sidewalk, and creates recreational facilities for students inside, as if the building wasn't designed to sit downtown, but was instead intended for the middle of a desert. I hope this isn't a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

There was a citizen's movement against this building, but it gained insufficient momentum, since housing "of any kind" downtown was the rallying cry for many years. But, it turns out, we don't want just anything. Eugene's citizens lost the opportunity to leverage the tax break given by the City, which could have forced the developers to build more in harmony with its surroundings. Of course, there were many other ways to get housing downtown besides these kinds of private-public deals. 

Now what? 

It is possible to fight this sort of project after it's built. It's important to help incoming students to understand the stakes, and since their education is also colonized through student loans, this kind of town-and-gown alliance would not be difficult to achieve. With a successful housing boycott, across the country, Wall Street could be forced to abandon this investment, and perhaps it could be converted into low-income housing, and renovated somehow to improve the structures' negative impacts upon the city. 

The fact that people around the world are forced to deal with such situations, where corporations use city governments to directly attack citizens and the environment, is simply a fact of life. This could have been stopped. Until the people of Eugene regain control of their government policies, the situation is going to simply get worse.

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At 10:03 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I love the fact there are people that see the reality of the corporate take over that is going on now.

The majority of the population perceives huge corporate entities as the job / career to have. The large corporation is economically enslaving the population from debt and low wages, numbers don't lie.

Peter Joseph with the Zeitgeist Movement is spot on with his analogy, watch his videos.

Nice post,

Zeb

 
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At 12:41 PM, Blogger 梁爵 said...

2020.05.22酒店小姐的基本介紹跟工作內容公關、陪侍乃至於性工作者通常不是酒店、舞廳、包廂KTV或養生館的直屬員工,他們我在酒店上班的日子在經紀人的帶領下,前往與經紀公司合作的酒店打工地點上班,比起雇傭更貼近承攬,沒店可以上工時就直接放無薪假,在政府勞動統計上他們等於是失業人口,申請失業救濟金是天方夜譚。酒店並無底薪保障,公關酒店上班-酒店兼職-兼差如何達成人生的第一桶金要客人點選坐檯才有薪水,而且店家會在發薪時扣除稅金,卻不會幫忙投保勞健保。依照 八大行業是哪八種行業呢?業績高低,酒店從公關的薪資中扣除400元到1,000元不等的營業稅,檯費也不是公關全部收進口袋裡,必須與酒店和趴客幹部、經紀人分潤,以350元的節薪而言,常見酒店兼差不是一個複雜的工作環境? 的配比是酒店與趴客幹部150元、小姐150元、經紀人50元,這個配比會依照小姐的外在條件、與經紀人和經紀公司的協議、是否有債務和借貸關係而有調整。錢的問題一向複雜,八大行業金流不患寡而患不均,事情每經過一個人的手,就必須給人抽成,如何打點每個關卡是極為細膩的功夫。客人的帳單上看不到公關們被扣款的部分,也看不到勞動權益被忽略的細節,更不要提酒店內物價奇幻,小姐們別在身上的名牌,一個要收500到1,000元的製作費,在公司休息室租用儲物櫃,也是以每星期千元為計價單位,小姐向公司團購質料粗劣的應景服飾,價格是網拍的十倍,並且每個星期收送洗費上千元,化妝、髮型與服裝不符合規定一項扣500元以上,店家也有各自的內規,例如遲到一分鐘扣50元,開會不到扣3,000元,遲到兩小時就要自己大框自己,也就是買下一整天60節的上班時間,立刻失血21,000元--要在這些條條框框後賺到錢,沒兩把刷子真難,八大也分三六九等,一張酒店收據不代表整個產業的全貌。

 
At 11:01 AM, Blogger 梁爵 said...

2020.05.27酒店小姐的基本介紹跟工作內容酒店兼職很好賺?小姐入行心得:想得太簡單!
傳播工作與我在酒店上班的日子酒店工作有什麼不同傳播小姐與酒店小姐的工作內容其實大同小異,不敢來酒店上班-酒店打工的原因但在工作內容以外卻有許多的大不同,我來為各位做出酒店上班-酒店兼職-兼差如何達成人生的第一桶金者不同的差異性,給各位做個酒店兼差不是一個複雜的工作環境?而且只要做酒店工作,這些都是無法避免的「有人覺得做禮服店就賺很多,又不會出場,我都覺得是幻想。你不是模特兒等級的,哪間禮服店收?時尚經紀公司 | 職場須知 【酒店PT 】時尚酒店經紀‬‎應徵酒店打工、酒店兼職、暑假打工、寒假打工、商務會館、國外打工、酒店小姐。解決您的急需與困難,勇敢追尋您的夢想,放心交給時尚娛樂,讓我們為您打造美麗的未來!酒店小姐藝名用疊字感覺活潑易記
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At 1:55 PM, Blogger 梁爵 said...

2020.06.14付費平台「酒店小姐的基本介紹跟工作內容Swag」充斥素人自導自演的性愛影片,片中的直播主全程無碼演出,時我在酒店上班的日子內容尺度更堪比日本A片,只要粉絲願意付費,就可直接下載觀賞。就有網友納悶不敢來酒店上班-酒店打工的原因,SWAG上的台女作風大膽,連露臉也沒在怕,比起私下酒店上班-酒店兼職-兼差如何達成人生的第一桶金接S的酒店小姐,毫不遮掩,「難道swagger有比酒店妹好賺嗎?」「寧可做swagger不去做酒店是什麼心態?酒店兼差不是一個複雜的工作環境?」有網友在PTT八卦板發問,「聽說職場須知 【酒店PT 】酒店妹月收12萬起跳,差不多是一般小公司副總等級了。最近很流行拍動作片放上swag給人家看,都被看光了,臉也露了,難道swagger有比酒店妹好賺嗎?同樣都是S,酒店妹至少隱密性高,不用動腦剪片想梗,swagger為什麼之前都不做酒店?」其他網友留言「喝酒傷身啊,上床不會怎樣吧,而且應該是跟她的熟人」、「工時長,還要一直吃肝藥vs藝術工作」、「swagger可以不用陪噁男啊」、「因為素質太差,連酒店都不收」、「拍片自己可以爽,酒店只能一直喝傷身」、「Swagger很多都修圖的」、「只有AV淪落去風俗的,風俗到AV是人生升級」。不少老司機點出差異,直言「跟男友/炮友上床還有錢賺,屌打酒店賣笑」、「酒店你要給醜肥宅摸,Swagger的對象可以自己選,喝太多酒也傷身體,而且日夜生活顛倒」、「一個上夜班,一個隨你喜好上班,當然後者」、「Swagger月薪不只12萬...遠超過」、「那些人出價約一次就是酒店一個月薪水了」。

 
At 8:34 AM, Blogger 梁爵 said...

2020.08.30酒店小姐去酒店上班都一定要出場接s嗎?日前一名29歲張姓酒店經紀被人擄至山區凌虐毒打,最後丟包在新莊河堤,被發現後送醫,仍宣告不治。據了解酒店兼差不是一個複雜的工作環境?這名死者隸屬於FACE經紀公司,是國內知名的酒店龍頭。FACE經紀公司竄起後,標榜主打年輕辣妹打工,讓酒店生意一路看好。FACE經紀公司甚至時常假扮星探,到東區捷運站拉攏年輕貌美女性到酒店小姐上班通常會取什麼名字?酒店上班,或許也正是因為搶酒店生意,才引發殺機。

 
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